I-Five started in the direction of the Sull.u.s.tan's kiosk, but Den stopped him. "If they tweaked that guy's warmware, having a droid start asking questions might trip some alarms. I'll go."

I-Five signified his a.s.sent and Den dived into the crowd, maneuvered through the stream of taller beings, and approached the weapons booth, shuffling a little and wringing his hands.

"I saw the Inquisitors, lequanahe said to the proprietor, using a Sull.u.s.tan term that roughly translated into Basic as "cave brother." The proprietor still seemed a bit dazed. "Did they tell you who did it?" Den asked. "Did they catch him?"

"Did what? . . . Oh! The murderer, you mean. No, they only asked me if I'd seen someone." His brow furrowed as if he couldn't recall who. Possibly they had wiped that memory.

"Really? They have a description?"

"I... I suppose they must have. A human boy, I think they said." He shook his head and shrugged. "Thousands like that in this marketplace."

"Yeah. At least."

Den turned and headed off down the thoroughfare. When he was out of sight of the Sull.u.s.tan's kiosk, he turned his head slightly and found I-Five pacing him about a meter away.

"Nothing," he told the droid. "If they asked him about anything besides seeing a human boy, he doesn't remember."

"Let's go down a level," I-Five said. He led Den to a lift about two blocks distant-with luck, a safe distance from the Inquisitorial trio.

On the level below they wandered a bit before entering a Stygian side alley and making their way into the kitchen of the Emperor's Board, a charity whose impeccable handling of its community service work kept it out of the Imperial eye. The ISB hardly cared who fed the rats as long as they filed the appropriate doc.u.mentation, which apparently Thi Xon Yimmon did.

I-Five took the lead, presenting himself to the Gungan cook. "I have a price bid for your proprietor on a job he requires performed," he said, his voice free of inflection, like a standard droid.

"From?" the Gungan asked, eyeing Den.

"A certain purveyor of lighting supplies. He tells me your proprietor has a dim corridor he wishes to make pa.s.sable."

"Oh yes." The Gungan nodded zealously enough to flap his cars and cause his eyestalks to bob up and down. "Yes, me-sa boss is in much need of such. Pa.s.sage long and very dark. You-sa got the bid?"

I-Five produced a data crystal seemingly from nowhere and handed it to the Gungan.

"When you-sa do the work?"

"Two days at oh seven hundred hours," I-Five said, then uttered three clicks, each one pitched slightly lower than the one before.

The Gungan smiled pleasantly and c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "You-sa oughta get that looked at, eh? Me-sa take this to the boss."

"One more thing," I-Five said before the cook could pocket the crystal and move away. "Tell the Sakiyan I will see him tomorrow at sunset. He knows the place."

The Gungan nodded his head, causing his long carflaps to dance about his shoulders. "No problem. Me-sa tell him this." When the Gungan cook had gone to deliver the crystal and the message-which was that the "work" would really be done at 0400 hours, three hours earlier than stated-Den looked up at I-Five with dread tugging at his heart.

"You've decided what you're going to do about the plan?"

"No. But I have given myself a deadline. I will decide by the time I see my contact tomorrow."

"Don't do it. Five. The risk-it's just too big. This whole thing is too big."

I-Five turned to look down at him, optical receptors bright in the dim interior of the charity's back corridors. "With all due respect, Den-and I mean that-I think I'm in a better position to gauge the risks than you are. My processor, in fact, has already calculated all the possible scenarios and variables inherent in my agreeing. I only await the majority opinion of the team before making my decision."

"And?"

"I promise you I will not take on this charge if Jax and the others feel that it's wrong."

Wrong. Not inadvisable. Not illogical. Not stupidly dangerous. Not lethal.

Wrong.

Den shook his head and followed I-Five back out into the street. When droids started philosophizing about morality and ethics, maybe it was time to investigate cyborg implants and a lobotomy.

Chapter Twelve.

It had wafted to him, borne on the winds of the Force, and he had known it immediately for what it was-a release of Force energy that possessed a peculiar edge. Neither of his fellows had noticed it-a fact that gave him a perverse tickle of pride. Not all Inquisitors were created equal, it seemed.

The intriguing sensation grew in strength as they pressed onward, rising several levels to a more affluent sector. As they drew nearer the source, it began to flash across his sight in lambent flurries of sparks. They had just entered a neighborhood in which quartets of resi-blocks were built around deeply buried courtyards and plazas when he was brought up short by its intensity'.

A shower of sparks all but blinded him, his skin flushed with heat, a strange roaring filled his cars, the tang of ozone was in his nostrils . . . and then it was gone. Completely and utterly gone-as if someone had thrown a thermo-blanket over a fire.

Tesla cast about helplessly and futilely, snarling in the rage of bereavement. "It was him! I know it was him!"

"Pavan?" asked his second, Yral Chad.

"No. Not Pavan. The other."

He felt Chad trade glances with the third of their number, a Corellian named Mas Sirrah.

"The prodigy is a secondary target, Probus," Chad said. "We were specifically ordered to step up our search for Pavan and the droid."

We. The p.r.o.noun infuriated him. After his injury at the hands of that rogue-that boy-his lord had seen fit to bring more Inquisitors into the game. So Tesla had found himself paired with Chael and Sirrah. He was the nominal leader of the grouping and was, in fact, charged with the prosecution of the search in this sector, but the members of his team each felt they should have been given the lead. After all, hadn't Tesla already proven his weakness by falling victim to an adept who was not even a trained Jedi?

Yes, he'd heard the cascade of innuendo that had torn through the ranks of the Inquisitorius like a flash flood. He'd ignored it. Soon he would silence it.

"What makes you think the two will not be found together?" he asked now. "The boy is a Force prodigy of unbelievable strength. It stands to reason that Pavan would want to recruit him, likely in some vain attempt to resurrect the molderitig Jedi corpse."

Again the two other Inquisitors exchanged glances. This time it was Mas Sirrah who spoke. "What makes you suppose that Pavan even knows of his existence?"

"Don't be stupid, Mas. Such a power is like gravity. It will draw Jax Pavan just as it draws me."

During the conversation he had been trying to reacquire the scent of that other Force-sensitive, scouring walls and halls and hidden rooms with his mind and finding only echoes, ghost perfumes. He peered down one long, convoluted alley with the unlikely name of s...o...b..ind Mews ... bur no. the trail was gone - like smoke flayed to transparency by a breeze.

He turned to his peers. "Pavan is somewhere on this level. Maybe he lives here, or maybe he's just hiding here, but he's here now. Stay in the area. I'll report to Lord Vader."

They nodded in unison and glided into the shadows while Tesla pulled out his comlink.

The look on Dejah Duare's expressive face betrayed a jumble of emotions: shock, affront, curiosity, trepidation. She pushed back the cowl of her robe and stared at him. "You want to move to the studio?"

"Not all of us maybe, but at least Kaj and me." Jax hated asking this of her; lie could see that it was wreaking havoc on her composure. "I hate hitting you with this, Dejah, and if I felt I had any choice, I wouldn't do it. But Kaj isn't in complete control of his talent, and I need to put him someplace where he stands half a chance of remaining concealed until I can complete his training-or at least teach him how to govern his impulses. Right now the Force is reacting to his every emotion. If he feels anger, the Force amplifies that anger until it's out of his control."

"Are you sure Ves's sculptures will shield him?"

"Not sure, but very hopeful. Especially if I-Five and I can modify them so that the field is widened and stabilized. "

Now she was simply stunned. "You want to modify them? You want to change them?"

"That is usually what the word modify means," Rhinann said from the doorway of the workroom.

Jax lifted a hand to prevent him from saying more actually putting a bit of the Force into the gesture for emphasis. The Elomin would experience it as the sensation of an invisible hand damped over his mouth for a moment. His eyes widened and his lips compressed to an even thinner line than usual, but he stayed put. Jax wished he would just go away, but he refused to use the Force for that sort of petty manipulation.

"Surely there are alternatives," Dejah said. "You could take him to the Whiplash. Don't they have safe houses that..."

"There's no safe house that's proof to a Force prodigy of Kaj's power. They'd have to keep him tranquilized day and night."

"So they keep him tranquilized. You've got him tranquilized now .. ."

"So he can sleep safely. But that's only a stopgap measure. Keeping him that way for any length of time would do him irreparable harm-and only make him more inclined to emotional overload and explosion."

Dejah moved closer to Jax, laying her hands on his arm. He instinctively raised a barrier of tightly woven Force threads against her involuntary a.s.sault on his senses.

" Then let's use Whiplash resources to smuggle Kaj offworld. The Togruta is being moved tomorrow morning, right? Can't we move Kaj at the same time?"

Jax shook his head. "Kaj's talent makes him a huge liability, Dejah. We don't have the safeguards in place to move him offworld without tremendous risk to everyone. What I'm asking of you is the only way to minimize the danger. Once Kaj is trained, he'll be able to control his emotions, and then he can learn to control his use of the Force."

She stared up at him for a long moment, her eyes searching his face. Finally she sighed and stepped back, relinquishing her grip on his arm. "Yes. Yes, of course, you're right. I just... those sculptures meant so much to me-to Ves. And now they represent irreplaceable financial resources."

"I'll try to use the minimum amount to do what needs doing and try not to modify them irretrievably. It may even be possible for I-Five to memorize Ves's settings and return them to their original configuration."

She nodded. "All right. Yes. Of course you can use the studio and the sculptures. How soon do you want to move him?" Her gaze flickered toward Jax's quarters where Kaj slept a deep, chemically augmented, and hopefully dreamless sleep.

"As soon as I-Five and Den get back. We'll need to get an airspeeder..." Jax glanced over at Rhinann, who responded with a courtly bow that was somehow laced with irony. It was most often the Elomin's job to arrange for transport and other resources simply because, having been high up within the Imperial apparatus, he knew how to acquire them without drawing undue attention.

"I shall, of course, arrange it," Rhinann said. "Anything else?"

"No . . . and thanks, Rhinann. I don't know what we'd do without you," Jax said.

The Elomin's eyes closed and opened in an almost reptilian blink, his entire body language eloquent of surprise. Then he inclined his head and disappeared into the workroom.

"I won't go with you," Dejah said. "To the studio, I mean. I don't think I could bear to see ..."

She left Jax to imagine what the end of the sentence might have been. I couldn't bear to see where Ves Volectte died. Or, I couldn't bear to see the sculptures that shielded him from me. Or, I couldn't bear to see you numgle his work. In any case, Jax was surprised to realize that he felt a strange mixture of disappointment and relief.

He watched her go into her room, aware of a budding tension that sat between his shoulder blades like an unreachable itch. He hoped Den and I-Five would get back soon. He wanted to go out and look for them, to hasten their return, but knew it would be dangerous to leave Kaj here untended. There was no way to know how long the anti-stim would work on someone with his abilities, or in what state of mind he'd awaken.

Den Dhur was in a black mood. More than any time since he'd signed on with I-Five and company, he felt as if everything was spinning hopelessly out of control. There were too many players, too many half-concealed agendas, and way too many risks.

He glanced up at I-Five, who moved silently beside him as they made their way back to Poloda Place. He had expected that the droid would be more concerned about the sudden interest Rhinann and Dejah had shown in the bota and would confide something in him, but even that expectation was doomed to disappointment. After that brief conversation, during which Den felt as if he'd finally gotten I-Five's full attention, it had been business as usual.

They stepped out of the antigrav tube a block from the entrance to the resiblock and made their way west. Den found himself watching pa.s.sersby. It was an old habit, dating back to his days as a newsbeing-he used to say that he could pick any face at random out of a sea of beings and twirl a story about him, her, or it that, often as not, was remarkably close to the truth. Now, tired of staring at kneecaps, he walked with his head tilted back. It made it difficult at times to keep his footing, but it was also the reason he saw the robed and hooded figure turn from the railing of a balcony two floors above street level in the building they were currently pa.s.sing. There was no question this time-the iridescent, shifting robes, the cowl, the sense of presence . . . this was not mistaken ident.i.ty.

This was the real thing.

Den stumbled, and I-Five put a hand down to steady him. "Are you all right?"

Den clung to the droid's arm, pretending vertigo, and murmured, "Balcony on the left. Second floor."

I-Five straightened slightly, "Someone just went inside."

"An Inquisitor. An Inquisitor just went inside. He was watching the street. Watching the entrance to the Mews."

I-Five put Den firmly on his feet. "Do tell."

"Don't be so frippin' sanguine about it, Five! Why are they here?"

"I could wager a guess."

Den's heart threatened to shift into reverse. "The kid? You think they're after the kid, or..."

"I think," said I-Five, turning him about and pushing him back the way they'd come, "that we need to find an alternative means of getting into Poloda Place."

The alternative means turned out to be a disguise; not for Den but for I-Five. Back down in Ploughtekal at a shop claiming the finest fabrics in the Zi-Kree Sector, the droid purchased a skinsuit that turned him into a perfectly credible Koorivar, right up to the multiliucd spiraling horn that sat atop his head. It was a large horn, bespeaking great social stature, and the robes that he purchased to go with it expanded on the impression that this was an affluent personage of much wealth and prestige.

Half an hour after their initial foray into the Mews, Den and I-Five made their way back again, the Sull.u.s.tan pretending to be a property agent showing this fine citizen available habitations in the area.

They approached the entrance to s...o...b..ind Mews, Den feeling as if eyes were last-ring into his back. He saw no Inquisitors this time as they made their way into the alley's mouth, but they kept up their charade anyway. So, despite the fact that he was sweating like a stuck ronto, Den managed to keep his voice energetic and plucky as he loudly described the features of the properties he was proud to represent.

"These conapes are roomy, comfortable, and quite chic when it comes to accoutrements. High ceilings, duracrete floors molded to look like cobbles in the food preparation area reduces slippage, you know-and sonic or steam showers. Buyer's choice."

"What about natural light?" growled I-Five in a perfect Koorivar accent. "I must have natural light."

"Then you've come to the right agent," Den enthused as they started up the dark winding way to Poloda Place. "I can get you a unit with natural light brought down all the way from the highest levels of the city."

"How is this possible?"

"Oh, the old architects knew what they were doing. The light is channeled by a series of movable mirrors." As Den babbled, having no idea if there was any truth at all in what he was claiming, he peered behind them. No one followed.

"Ah yes, of course. How many rooms?"

"As many as you need. You have a wife? Children?"